For some months now, there have been no new releases from any major company. As such, the only updates we have for now are price/availability related.

And here they are:

The R5 2600 has been substituted in for the i5-8400 in the Very Good tier

The now-lower price of the 2600 makes it a better purchase than the 8400 in some regions (including the US). Thus, where the price of the 2600 is indeed lower, we have switched to it, along with a compatible HSF and mobo.

The Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate CPU Cooler has been added to the Extremist and Monstrous tiers

The Extremist tier uses the TR4 socket, which has very limited compatibility with existing coolers. You can see AMD’s official list here. Unfortunately, the list is quite small, with only about two dozen options. Still, the Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate is well reviewed, so we have added it as a third option.

Please note: Thermaltake has very “wisely” chosen to have 6 different products with “Water 3.0” in the name. Some of these are decent; some are not. If you go with that motherboard for one of those tiers, please make sure you get the exact board we recommend, the Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate, and not one of the other 5 very similarly named items.

We should have another small update sometime soon in the future, while we prepare for some big announcements.